


tell me where you go

by marcel



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Happy Ending, How Bout That Finale Huh, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05, Reunions, especially for Eliot because in this house Eliot gets what he deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23500846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcel/pseuds/marcel
Summary: One second Eliot is unbuttoning his waistcoat, watching Charlton-as-Hyman wrestle his pants off, mentally resigned to doing whatever this is for the rest of the afternoon, and the next he’s on a rocky cliff facing the sea, squinting in the sun as the wind blows his tie over his shoulder."Oh, thank fuck," says Margo.Eliot comes to New Fillory, and everything turns out fine.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 75
Kudos: 398





	tell me where you go

**Author's Note:**

> hi i thought of this at 9am the morning after the finale aired and now 72-ish hours later here it is. sometimes it be like that.  
> shoutout to everyone else who's indescribably mad about the finale! hopefully we all manage to eternal sunshine ourselves about it, but in the meantime i hope this makes it hurt a little less.
> 
> thank u becca for catching all my ipad spelling mistakes and giving me such an honest review, thank u julia, marissa and maddie for letting me (literally) scream about the magicians for (literally) 90 minutes, and thank u nicole for, u know, everything. it is, as always, all for u.

One second Eliot is unbuttoning his waistcoat, watching Charlton-as-Hyman wrestle his pants off, mentally resigned to doing whatever this is for the rest of the afternoon - at least it’s a change of pace from sitting around, thinking about lesson plans to avoid thinking about anything else - and the next he’s on a rocky cliff facing the sea, squinting in the sun as the wind blows his tie over his shoulder. 

"Oh, thank fuck," says Margo, suddenly in front of him.

"What," Eliot says belatedly, staring back at her. "How—" But then the wind blows again and Josh is there, tugging him back before he staggers off the edge of the rock.

"Whoa, careful," he laughs.

"What the fuck," Eliot says, with feeling, and lets Margo pull him into a tight hug.

Despite her bruising grip on his rib cage, it's suddenly easier to breathe than it has been for months. Eliot wraps his arms around her, presses his cheek against her head and closes his eyes. "Bambi," he breathes, and the crushing weight he hadn't realized he'd gotten used to lifts off his shoulders. As much as he'd been trying not to think about it, he couldn't help wondering if she was dead, if the spell backfired, if somehow, beyond all expectations, he had managed to outlive everyone he loved— but now he can hardly believe he'd ever let himself think he'd never hold her ever again.

Margo pulls back eventually, eyes wet as she looks up at him. "You have no fucking idea how glad I am that worked."

"I think I just might,'' Eliot says, and finally glances around. Fen is there too, and Alice, clearing up the runes drawn on the rocks a few feet away, the remnants of whatever UFO-dropper summoning spell they used to get him here. They both look as relieved as he feels, if maybe a little less completely baffled as to where they are. "So, the— it worked then, the world seed?"

"Seems that way," Josh says with a proud nod. "No problems yet. And we got you here in one piece, so that means interdimensional travel is still allowed."

"Glad to have been part of the test run," Eliot says flatly. Glaring half-heartedly at Josh, he finally notices that he looks... different. They all do - not much, but enough for it to be clear that some time has passed since they cast the creation spell. Their clothes are in the half-falling-apart, but-what-if-these-are-the-only-jeans-I-ever-wear-again state that Eliot recognizes from the mosaic. That realization hurts unexpectedly, and he pushes it from his mind.

"How long has it been since you—" _Disappeared_ , he wants to say, but he knows it isn't fair. "Since you arrived?"

Josh frowns and looks back at Alice. "A few weeks? Five?"

"Six and a half," Alice says, brushing herself off.

Eliot reels a little, blinking hard. On Earth, it's been nearly double that. He looks back down at Margo. "Tell me you've figured out the Fillorian alcohol problem."

"Oh, honey," Margo drawls, grinning up at him. "We aren't in Fillory anymore."

New Fillory, as they’re calling it for lack of a better idea - except Josh, who keeps jokingly calling it Bob, which he swears is a movie reference at the same time Margo swears she’ll kill him if it sticks - is nice, familiar but new at the same time. The rest of the plan seems to have worked out after all, and a few un-raptured Fillorians ended up appearing near the cliffs too. They've started a settlement there, at the edge of a forest that shields them from the winds coming off the sea.

"Did I just hear someone call this place _Margaritaville?_ '' Eliot asks, as Margo leads him past a group of bears thatching a cabin roof.

"Margheritaville, like the pizza," she corrects him, waving a hand. "It's a long story."

Margo and the others walk him slowly around the little village, pointing out the finished cabins, the garden they've started, the building plot reserved for the pub-to-be, the shrine to Fen—

("I'm kind of an honorary Goddess now," Fen explains, when Eliot does a double-take. She has a tiny excited smile, like this is a fun new development. "The Birth Mother. Nice, huh?"

It's a little on the nose, Eliot thinks, but he's happy for her anyway. They've all had some shitty luck where Gods are concerned, but this bodes well, for once. "You deserve it," he tells her, and realizes when he hugs her just how much he means it.)

— and eventually, a small stack of barrels tucked against a thick-trunked tree, guarded by a rather serious looking badger. They were lucky enough, Margo explains, to have a winery owner get un-raptured in their midst. There's no full winery here yet, of course, but with some help from Josh they've managed to make do with some grapes found in a glade closeby. Margo offers to use her Kingly privilege to procure him an exclusive cup, but Alice steps in and gives her a pointed look.

"There's something else you should probably see first," she tells Eliot.

"Oh shit, right," Margo gasps excitedly, and lets go of his arm for the first time since he arrived. Eliot misses it immediately, but Alice is beckoning him along, and Margo's playful expression as she waves him off is soothing enough that he manages to relax, just a little.

Instead of further into the village, Alice leads him right into the forest, down a path that doesn't seem that well-trodden yet. As they go deeper, Eliot can't help being reminded of their hike up the mountain in Fillory, even if that was a much steeper and more tense journey than this stroll through the trees. It's a quiet walk, mostly, until Alice asks how everyone is adjusting back on Earth, and Eliot has to pretend he could stand to be in a room with Kady without immediately thinking of everyone who wasn't there.

"The baby's fine," he says eventually, "Julia's— good, and… everything's, you know. Fixed." Except the crushing sense of loss that he was just barely keeping himself from buckling under. "Except the moon." He clears his throat, steps wide to avoid a thick tree root. "How about you? Seems like there's a lot to do in town."

"Yeah, building infrastructure from scratch has been interesting," Alice sighs, "but it's going well, all things considered. The Fillorians are very eager. And we really haven't explored very far yet. All we really know for sure is that the Wellspring must be out there somewhere, because magic is still around, and, I mean—" She pauses, looking up at him with a tiny quirk of her lips. "We did manage to get you here in one piece, like Josh said. Even with only five hands between us."

Eliot smiles back at her. He wonders how they managed to find a spell way out here that could reach him across however many dimensions, but he also remembers someone mentioning a bacon field, so he supposes anything is possible. "Thanks for that, by the way. I wasn't exactly living my best life."

Alice doesn't ask him to elaborate, which he's grateful for - the Charlton thing makes him shiver to think about. At least he's got what secret he's taking to the grave figured out.

"I'm just sorry it took so long," Alice tells him, and then suddenly stops by a little fence that's popped up in their path. She turns to Eliot with a look like she's working herself up to something. "Which, um… okay. Look, Margo really missed you - we all did, so we agreed, weeks ago, that we would try and get you here."

"Alright," Eliot says slowly. "Thanks, again."

"And then, after that," she goes on, "we… found something."

Eliot watches her carefully, wary of her sudden seriousness. "Ominous, but okay."

Alice's mouth twists, like she's annoyed that he's not understanding. "What I'm saying is, we already wanted to get you to New Fillory, basically from the moment we arrived, but after we found this, we knew we _had_ to." She gives him a searching look, but Eliot can't imagine what she could possibly be expecting to see on his face.

"Just trust me," she finally says, then turns and leads him past the fence into a little clearing.

As soon as they come through the trees, Eliot is struck by déjà vu so strong it staggers him. This isn't Fillory, he knows, and it's definitely not _their_ Fillory, but— There's the cottage, and the trees they planted, and the daybed, the bricks around the garden, the _mosaic—_

"How the fuck," he starts to say, before his throat closes on it.

"You know how each of us who did the spell kind of brought things in," Alice says, hesitant, "like the knife trees, and the pizza ovens?"

"Yeah, but this—" Eliot swallows hard, forces the words out. "I didn't cast it, Alice, so how did— _this_ get here?"

She bites her lip. "I think— because you told me about it."

And he did, didn't he - after the Mountain of Ghosts, he and Alice spent a little more time together whenever they both had a spare moment to breathe. It feels like ages ago now, but he did tell her about the cottage, describing it, lovingly, in a way he'd never done to anyone before. He and Quentin never got much of a chance to reminisce, and after the Monster and the seam and— everything else, Eliot never wanted to talk about it, anyway. It wasn't until he and Alice went up to the well and it bubbled out of him before he could stop it that he realized just how much space it was taking up inside him. After that, he kind of felt like Alice, out of everyone, deserved to know more about those memories, about this little piece of Quentin that he had kept to himself.

He told her some things, the broad strokes of it, the puzzle and the cottage and the things they built together - but not everything. He never mentioned Teddy. Those memories were too precious, too close to his heart to show anyone who hadn't been there. Some things, he decided, were just for him and Quentin. Or just him.

That thought sobers him a little. He takes a deep breath and looks around the clearing again, taking it in for what it is. And it's... nice. Bittersweet like nostalgia always is, but nice. "Well, it's one hell of a welcome present, I guess."

But Alice raises her hand, cutting him off. "Just... wait."

It's quiet for a long moment, nothing but the rustling of wind in the trees around them, but then there's footsteps, a little shuffling somewhere behind the cottage. Eliot glances warily at Alice, but she's smiling, and when he looks back into the clearing, someone is stepping out from around the cottage, and then—

And then Quentin is there, stopping in his tracks when he sees them. He seems a little surprised at first, but then his eyes land on Eliot, and Eliot feels all the breath leave his lungs.

— — — 

Quentin honestly didn't notice he was anywhere different, at first. When the creation spell was cast, a spell Quentin had put so much of himself into during a time when he wasn't holding onto much else, he was somehow, unexpectedly, drawn up from the Underworld with it, and brought along for the ride. Or at least, that was how Alice had explained it to him afterwards.

He just lived there in the cottage, still thinking he was in the Underworld, for at least a week. It wasn't so different from his afterlife, after all, puttering around the clearing and listening to the trees and basking in the calm stillness that surrounded him. Maybe the air was a little different, the wind a little colder, but he didn't exactly have a frame of reference for how eternal rest was supposed to go.

Then one day, Josh and Margo trampled through the edge of the clearing and saw him, and screamed, and that seemed a bit too weird to put down to an Underworld bureaucracy mishap.

So he's here now, in New Fillory, where things are just on the edge of familiar but also completely different. The knife trees would probably take some getting used to, but what mattered most was that his friends were there— or, well, most of them. Margo told him about Julia and the baby (he had a little private cry about Hope _Quentin_ Wicker), but she looked a little troubled when he had asked about Eliot. He tried to ignore the pang in his chest and focus on what she was saying about whales, Rupert Chatwin, broken fingers— 

Maybe he had looked more concerned than he meant to, because Margo immediately promised that once she, Josh and Alice got some sort of transporter-portal-interdimensional bodysnatch spell figured out, they would find Eliot ASAP - and Julia and the others, of course, but she made no effort to hide that Eliot was her priority. Quentin couldn't help agreeing.

As for the actual spellwork… Quentin had wanted to help, but adjusting to being alive again was exhausting enough without also having to figure out how to act around people who got used to him being dead. Margo ended up being the only one he could really spend a whole day with, but even that could be rough - sometimes they would both go quiet in the middle of a conversation, like they were waiting for someone else to contribute who wasn't there. While there were zero cracks in the brave face she was putting on, Quentin could tell that she was missing Eliot like a limb, and knew she was probably feeling just as off-kilter as he was. Margo also seemed to be the only one who could tell when Quentin needed a minute, or several minutes, or an entire afternoon to himself to recharge.

That's not to say he didn't want to spend time with the others, because he did, but he never got to know Fen super well, and Josh wanted to give him gardening tips more often than not, and things with Alice were— a little weird, for obvious reasons. He usually ran out of energy pretty quickly anyway, and would retreat back to the clearing before long.

So, he let the others work on the spell, and in the meantime did odd jobs and small mendings around the village. The Fillorians in Margheritaville had a lot of smaller, less-emotionally-charged tasks that they needed assistance with, things that didn't at all involve the fate of some of the people he loved most in the world. Or— the other world, Earth, whatever.

And— it reminded him a bit of how things were in Fillory - old Fillory, mosaic Fillory - where he and Eliot would trade spells for supplies in the nearest town. It was a nice memory, one that didn't hurt as much to think about as some others did.

It's a nice place to live, this new world. Definitely better than the afterlife, if maybe a little less peaceful, and with more pizza, for some reason. Quentin had really been starting to think, after a few weeks, that he was adjusting.

And then Alice shows up in the clearing with Eliot in tow, and Quentin feels like his heart is beating for the first time since the seam.

"Q." Eliot looks like he's about to cry, and if he cries Quentin is _definitely_ going to, or maybe he already is. His vision is blurring, but that could be because he's rushing across the clearing, reaching up to wrap his arms around Eliot's shoulders and pressing himself against him. Eliot's hand comes up to cradle the base of his skull, the other winding around his waist to keep him there, and as Quentin turns his face against Eliot's neck he feels Eliot press his nose into his hair. "Q," he says again, voice breaking. "I'm— is this real, are you really—?"

"I'm here," Quentin says, pulling back to look into his face, but he keeps his hands on him, sliding down to his lapels. It's been so long since they touched, since he looked into Eliot's eyes and saw _him_ staring back—

"God, Eliot, I thought—" _I thought I'd never see you again._ The words are too heavy to get past his tongue. "I missed you."

Eliot makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "How can you say that when—" He cuts himself off, and Quentin watches him swallow the rest of it and let out a shuddery breath. He pulls Quentin back in instead, his hand warm where it presses between his shoulders. "You were dead, Quentin, how are you here?"

Quentin has the insane urge to laugh. He's just so, so glad to not be dead right now. "It was the, um, the creation spell." He pulls back just a little, not far enough for Eliot to let go but just to be able to explain while face to face. "When the new world… _happened_ , it uh. Brought me with it. Somehow."

"Somehow," Alice agrees, with a little laugh of her own.

Eliot pulls fully back then, glancing between him and Alice for a split second before sliding his hands slowly down Quentin's arms, almost like he's checking for injury. He stops with his fingers around Quentin's wrists and, suddenly terrified he's going to let go, Quentin doesn't hesitate to turn them over, gripping Eliot's hands with his own. "We're not really sure yet," he admits.

That gets Eliot smiling at him, finally, a little watery around the edges but _real_. "Well, I don't fully understand how I got here either," he says. "But I was barely keeping track of days on Earth, so."

Quentin bites back the urge to ask how long it's been. He's honestly not sure if he wants to know. Eliot looks so ragged, not in his clothes but in his face, like he hasn't slept in days, or maybe longer. And there's something else, something beyond fatigue, but Quentin doesn't know how to ask about that. _How have you been?_ just doesn't seem to cut it.

"It's good to see you," he says instead, but that doesn't really cut it, either. "I, um. I really, really missed you."

"I missed you too," Eliot laughs, still watery. "God, Quentin, I can't even— _begin_ to express just how differently I thought my day would go."

Quentin grins back at him, giddy with it. "Well, I'm glad it didn't."

"Will you come back to Margheritaville with us?" Alice asks, stepping tentatively closer. "I'm sure Josh and Margo want to do something to celebrate."

Usually, Quentin skips out on the community potluck things that Josh and Fen seem so partial to, preferring to escape to the quiet of the cottage whenever he can. But today is different, and Eliot's fingers have tightened just a little around his own. "Sure," he says, smiling at her - even that is easier than it's been in a long time. "Lead the way."

He isn't sure Eliot even realizes he still has his fingers wound up with Quentin's as they walk through the forest, but he's sure as hell not going to mention it. It's been too long since he felt Eliot's hands on him and knew they were _his_ , but here there's no question, and Quentin is going to soak in as many touches as he can - Eliot brushing his shoulder where the path gets thin, Eliot catching his elbow when Margo nearly knocks him backwards with a hug, Eliot's hand on the small of his back as Josh leads them around the long tables he built just for nights like this.

There are a lot more things he wants to say to Eliot, too, when he gets a chance. He just needs some time to sort through them in his mind, first - and it's probably better to wait until Eliot has been in New Fillory for longer than thirty seconds, anyway. Maybe then they can catch a moment alone.

For now Quentin can just be glad that he's here, warm and whole and himself, and that Margo seems unable to keep from smiling, and that for once, everyone around him is happy and safe.

— — — 

Quentin almost definitely knows the way back to the cottage better than Eliot does, but he volunteers to walk back with him anyway. Alice comes too, because she had the least Fillorian-wine-but-good-now of the three of them, and while Eliot wouldn't call himself anywhere near drunk, it's the thought that counts. She lights their way with tiny orbs that float around the trees like fireflies, and Eliot is so distracted by them - and by the way Quentin keeps glancing back at him - that he almost forgets what's waiting in the clearing beyond the fence.

He stops dead just past the treeline, nearly bowled over again by the way the mosaic is just _there_ , somehow. He really doesnt think he can handle walking up to the door of the cottage just yet, but Quentin seems to understand, and says his goodbyes to him and Alice by the trees before he heads further into the clearing.

It's hard to let Quentin out of his sight, now that Eliot knows he's here, but he manages to swallow past the tiny flare of panic and let him disappear inside. He's surprised when Alice follows him back to the path, having expected her to stay behind with Quentin - she's the one who found his notes and cast the spell that brought him here, so god knows she deserves some quality time with him, but instead she sticks close to Eliot on the path, gathering up the firefly orbs as they go.

Honestly, Quentin just— being here, alive and okay and safe for once, should be enough. But Eliot has missed him so much, so badly he thought he would die from it, and the only reason he didn't let himself was because dying would make Quentin's sacrifice pointless, and if it hurt this bad it had to be worth it. But it wasn't, and the world was still broken, and people still wanted to kill them, and Fillory was more fucked than ever - and now they're here, with none of those problems as of yet, and it's literally almost painful to be away from Quentin now that Eliot knows he's within reach. He follows the path back to the village anyway, trying not to think about the distance between them widening with every step.

Margo, Josh, Alice and Fen have their own cabin in Margheritaville, tiny and quaint on the outside but magically expanded within. They're still not sure if anything like Whitespire exists in New Fillory yet, but this is more than enough for now, especially since Josh apparently already has plans to add an industrial kitchen. 

Eliot sleeps in Margo's room - or, tries to, anyway. He doesn't realize until he's been lying awake for an hour or so just how much he's missed bedding down in a place with other people only a room away. Suddenly his couple months of insomnia, fitful naps and drinking himself to sleep make a lot more sense, for more than the obvious reasons. Having Margo curled up in his arms is one thing, but he hears someone a room over - Fen, he thinks - roll over in bed through the wall, the mattress creaking and blankets shuffling, and feels tears prick at his eyes.

Christ, he's been so lonely. How did he ever think he could do this without them, his friends, without _Margo—_

And then he really is crying, grief and heartache mixing with pure relief and making him shake so much he wakes Margo up.

She turns over in his arms and reaches up to stroke his cheek, gentle like she never is for anyone else. "What's wrong?" she asks, sleep-soft but worried.

Eliot doesn't even know where to begin, let alone how to get the words out. "I missed you," he finally manages, half a sob, and the look she gives him is so heartbroken it nearly sets him off again.

"Oh, El." She shifts closer, tugging him down to press their foreheads together. "Baby, what happened to you?"

So he tells her, haltingly, about the three months without her, every miserable moment. It breaks open a dam within him and he lets the flood come for once, telling her everything that he had kept to himself since he woke up in his own body again - his fear of the Monster and connection with Sebastien and immense, bottomless grief for Quentin, and, when Margo looks like she's biting back questions, he finally, _finally_ tells her about the mosaic.

That story takes longer than the rest. He wants to get it right.

"It was really beautiful," he murmurs, tears now dry and itchy on his cheeks. "A whole life, years and years of just... us. We grew old together, Bambi. And I—" He pauses, holding the words in his mouth for just a moment. "I loved him."

"So what happened?" Margo asks softly. She's been stroking his hair as he talks, and her fingers pause now. "I got the key and stopped you from going, and then what?"

"We remembered, somehow," he sighs. "The letter he wrote to you— it all came back. And Quentin wanted…" He shudders out a breath. "He asked if we could try it. In the real world, being together."

"Oh." She sounds surprised for a moment, but Eliot wonders if she can already guess where it's all headed. She should know him well enough for that. He swallows around a thousand deprications crawling up his throat, makes himself reach for honesty instead.

"But I was afraid." His voice is smaller than he means it to be. "I turned him down. And then there was the quest, and the Monster, and then he fucking— died." He shrugs one shoulder, sniffling. "So, there wasn't really time to… talk about it."

Margo gives him a long, sad look. "You never got a chance to tell him?"

"No." But that's not entirely true, is it? "I wrote it down, once. You remember those stamps?"

Connecting the dots at lightning speed, Margo swats him lightly on the shoulder. "I _knew_ you were being shifty about something then, you asshole." Her annoyed pout quickly shrinks back to a curious frown. "So you wrote to him, but… what did you do with it?"

Writing the letter to Quentin feels like it was done a lifetime ago now, but Eliot still remembers most of what he ended up putting down. A lot of promises. A lot of apologizing. A lot of staring at the page and wondering if it would even matter, and making himself do it anyway.

But he knows what he didn't say, what he didn't want to write down even if it was already between every line - the thing he wanted to save for when Quentin could hear it directly from him in person. Of course he knew he still might never get the chance, but—

He couldn't let himself think about that, or he would never stop.

"I got rid of it. I couldn't send it, not without... you know."

"Fucking up everything that Quentin had just un-fucked? Yeah." Margo strokes his hair again, still frowning. "But— El, even without that… he must have known. He must _know_ , even now."

Eliot isn't so sure. He has a pretty visceral memory of the exact way he told Quentin to fuck off in the throne room, even got to live it twice, and although that was even longer ago than writing the letter was, it still feels like he blew his only chance. After everything Quentin went through with the Monster and then the fucking afterlife, of all things - who knows if he still cares, or if he’s moved on? That was what Eliot wanted for him anyway, wasn't it?

Well. It wasn't, not really, even if he was too much of a coward to realize it. But regardless, it's not exactly Eliot's choice anymore.

"I don't—" His voice cracks, and he tries again, quieter. "I don't want to fuck it up, Margo, I just got him back."

"Okay," Margo says soothingly, but Eliot can tell she's not ready to drop it. For tonight, though, she seems to allow it, cuddling in closer to him and pulling the blankets up. "Well, you have time to figure it out. Seems like we're gonna be sticking around here for a while."

"Good." Eliot lets out a long sigh, trying to get all the extra dredged-up emotion out with it and relax again. After spending months slowly forgetting what it was like to feel anything but morose, the contentment he can already feel settling back over him now is— unreal. He really, really doesn't want to be anywhere else.

He's done crying now, and curling up in bed with Margo is healing even when they haven't been apart for very long, and as Eliot repositions his arms around her he feels... hopeful, for the first time in a long time. 

He dreams of Quentin with the letter in his hands, and for once, it doesn't even hurt.

— — — 

Quentin glances at the bookshelf for the third time in as many minutes and finally gives up trying to tire himself out with whittling before bed. The tiny centaur he's been carving deserves more focus than he can give right now, and the last thing he needs is to accidentally slice his finger off or something. He puts the knife and the woodblock down and gets up to wander over to the shelf, staring at it for a long moment in the dim light from the lantern on his work table, before he finally reaches out and pushes two of the spines apart.

The envelope he had tucked between them - years ago, it feels like - falls out, and he picks it up, turning it over in his hands.

_Quentin Coldwater, Before He Went To The Seam_

The letter arrived in the Underworld instead of where it was addressed, actually, the magic stamp apparently inconsequential without a mailbox. But the well on the Mountain of Ghosts really was an express lane to the Underworld after all - or maybe 'express' is the wrong word when time is so fucked up in Fillory, and even more so in the afterlife. But either way, it showed up at the cottage one day, and Quentin knew it was from Eliot, and felt his breath catch, and then… didn't open it.

It was addressed to a different him, arguably, like getting a previous tenant's mail. That was one reason to leave it alone. There was also an element of mystery to it - unopened, he could imagine what the letter inside might say, he could imagine a thousand different things— but as soon as he opened it, the illusion would shatter and he would be left with whatever the reality was.

And he was dead, anyway. It was probably best to let these things lie. But he held onto the letter regardless, a weird, morbid sort of keepsake. He thought about it sometimes, and about Eliot, and then usually tried very hard not to think about either anymore.

When he ended up in New Fillory, not dead, with the letter still unopened, something changed. At that point he could admit he was too scared to read it, too wary of what it would mean, what regrets it would bring up - especially here, with some of his friends but not all, and especially not the one person he knew he would most want to see afterwards.

But Margo said they were working on it, and really, what could Quentin do but believe her, and glance at the bookshelf every so often, and hope?

And then Eliot finally showed up, and, well. Here he is with the letter, and no excuse to be scared anymore. He takes a deep breath and runs his fingers under the seal.

— — — 

Eliot spends the morning sitting on a stump outside the cabin and considering if it might be easier to ditch his slacks now, or if he should hold on until they become truly unwearable. There is a weaver in the village, although they haven't figured out how to enchant her loom properly yet, and Eliot just doesn't want to end up in a tablecloth like Josh had that one time. Those were, admittedly, very different circumstances, but the fear is still there.

Before she left to spend the day tracking down some wild horses that may or may not have trampled through the nearby bacon field a few days previous, Margo had brought him a coffee - apparently pre-roasted coffee beans are naturally-occurring here too, and one of the local sloths turned out to be very good at brewing them. Eliot is pretty sure she meant for it to help him deal with the interdimensional jetlag, but he's surprisingly clear-headed, although that might be in part because the past three months have felt like one long hangover, both literal and figurative.

He should probably go talk to Q. He definitely has some things to say, some of which are long overdue. Namely _I'm sorry for fucking everything up_. That's probably a good place to start.

But the more he thinks about it, the more he considers that he could also _not_ go talk to Quentin, and instead just bask a little longer in the satisfaction of knowing he's here on the same planet as him once again. That seems a lot easier, the only problem being that he's been anxious to see Quentin again basically since the moment he disappeared from view the night before. It's a real dilemma. Eliot might just have to sit here even longer to think about it.

It's then that Alice comes out of the cabin, and stops in front of him with her eyebrow raised. "Josh said you were out here thinking about pants," she says.

Eliot frowns up at her. "That feels reductive."

She cracks a smile, but gives him a long look that makes him feel oddly bare. "You're not planning to spend all day sitting here avoiding everyone, are you?"

Well, it had been worth a shot. "If you're getting into mind-reading now, I think I'm entitled to a ten-minute warning."

"Oh, please," Alice scoffs. "I might not have seen you for a while, but I know that look." She tilts her head towards the trees beyond the cabin, beckoning him. "Let's take a walk."

Thinking maybe his avoidance plans aren't entirely lost, Eliot goes along with her. She leads him on a different path through the forest, a longer trek than the way to the cottage had been. Eventually they emerge from the trees on another cliff, with more of a sheer drop than the rocky outcropping he'd arrived on. It slopes down a little hill, and between the edge of that and the opposite cliff face across the chasm is the Rainbow Bridge, somehow transplanted from their very first excursion to Fillory. 

Eliot shakes his head as he takes it in. "Christ, that's a blast from the past."

"We found it pretty recently," Alice explains, walking along the tree line. She reaches another path heading back into the forest, and pauses to let Eliot catch up. "We haven't explored the other side yet, but that's probably where we're going next."

"Huh." Eliot takes one last look at the bridge before he joins her. "Well, hopefully there's no one waiting there to crown anybody, right?"

Alice laughs a little. "I don't think any of us included the cursed thrones in our best memories of Fillory, so yeah, hopefully."

As they duck back into the trees, Eliot can't help thinking of how things were the last time they saw the Rainbow Bridge. They were so young and naïve, and had no idea what they were about to get into with Fillory. He and Alice weren't on the greatest terms then - it was pretty soon after his and Margo's night with Q, which led directly to Quentin and Alice breaking up. Eliot hadn't had much of a mind to feel bad about it at the time, but it was also one of the main things colouring his and Alice's relationship basically until they got to the top of the Mountain of Ghosts together.

Now that they have some footholds in a real friendship, Eliot wonders how differently it could've gone if he hadn't fucked things up for her. Not that he'd ever regret sleeping with Quentin, but he has to admit his timing wasn't great.

"Hey, um." Alice brings him out of his thoughts, glancing over her shoulder at him. "Can I ask you something?" 

He takes a couple long strides to catch up with her. "Should I be worried?"

"No, just…" She bites her lip for a moment, then seems to catch herself doing it and stops. "Eliot, why do you think Quentin is here?"

It would be coming out of left field if Eliot wasn't already thinking about her and Quentin. Maybe Alice is on the same page as he is with the Rainbow Bridge. "Well, you're the one who found his notes about the creation spell, and you're the one who cast it, so…" He trails off with a shrug, and when he glances up at Alice she's looking at the ground.

"So you think... I brought him here somehow, with the spell."

"Basically, yeah." Eliot had thought it was obvious. If it couldn't work out between her and Q on Earth, maybe it could here, the second chance they both deserve. If that's the way things are supposed to go in this world, he can probably live with that. He owes it to Alice, to both of them, to not get in the way of it again. But Alice doesn't seem so sure, still not meeting his eye. "Why, what do _you_ think he's here for, O Master Magician?"

If the title annoys her, she doesn't show it. "I think... maybe there's no one reason," she says carefully. "Since the spell was more his than anyone's, maybe he would've ended up here no matter who was casting it."

That's a nice thought, Eliot supposes, that Q's return was inevitable, but the idea that they had the means for it the whole time and didn't know it kind of makes his chest ache. "Okay, say there's no catalyst. But you can't tell me you weren't thinking of him." What was it that Fen had said? _The best of Fillory, the best of us, of Earth…_

"It wasn't that simple, Eliot," Alice says sharply, stopping on the path and finally looking up at him. "We didn't really get to choose what we brought to this world. It was a big mess of Fillory memories and Earth memories and— and _heartache_ , and just wishing so, so hard that this would _work_. I don't even remember anything I thought of specifically, I just wanted it to be safe, for once."

Eliot blinks at her, surprised by the outburst - she looks a little shocked about it herself, clearing her throat before she starts walking again. "When we found the cottage," she goes on, quieter now, "and Quentin, I did think at first that maybe it was here for me. Maybe _he_ was here for me, finally, in a place where we could both… make it work, this time." 

Swallowing past an ache that tries to crawl up from his chest, Eliot nods along. Alice smiles just a little, then shakes her head. "But I was wrong."

Eliot frowns. "What do you mean?"

"The cottage isn't mine," Alice says, like it's obvious. "It's yours, yours and his."

"It was," Eliot corrects her, even as it hurts to say. "Here, it's— it's out of context, it's not—"

"I didn't bring it here to try and change the context," Alice cuts him off. "Just like whichever one of us brought the bridge didn't do it to get a do-over with what happened when we crossed it. It's just a nice memory, a piece worth keeping."

Eliot can't help letting something sharp and mean slip into his tone. "But it's not _your_ memory."

"I know," Alice says, gentle. She stops on the path again, her hand on his arm. "But you shared it with me when you didn't have to. And I think... maybe I brought the cottage here for you, whether I meant to or not."

He had really thought he was all cried out, but Eliot feels the pricking of tears start in his eyes again. "You didn't know I would end up here," he says, fighting to keep his voice even. "You didn't even know _you_ would."

"So what?" Alice laughs wetly, smiling even as her eyes are welling up behind her glasses. "It's external circumstances, Eliot, it just _is_. You're allowed to accept it, even if it's not what you think you deserve. But you do," she stresses, holding his gaze. "It's there, and it's yours, and it's been waiting for you. And I think Quentin has been, too."

Eliot thinks of the Mountain, suddenly - he and Alice crying on each other but in much worse circumstances, and what had she said then. _I think he was really in love with you._

Hope grows a little more in its tiny crevasse in his chest. And then he realizes where they've stopped, and that Alice has led him to the little fence again.

"Alice," he starts, not even sure how to begin, but she smiles and steps back, waving him off.

"Just go, already," she sighs.

So, he does.

The cottage is right where he left it, and though the sight of it doesn't hit him quite so hard this time, it still makes him pause at the edge of the trees before he can remind his feet to move. Quentin isn't anywhere outside, so he takes a few minutes to wander around the clearing, looking closer at the little garden, and then at the finished design on the mosaic.

It pulls at something in his memory - he's not sure if it's one he and Quentin ever tried putting together or something new, but either way it's familiar. Just standing over it feels like falling back on muscle memory. Something in his shoulders aches, like his entire spine is being reminded of how much time he once spent bent over this stupid puzzle, even though this body has never been here.

He decides not to question it. He'll take the phantom ache of exertion over some of the things this body actually has done, no hesitation.

"Eliot?"

He turns, pulling himself out of the memory, and sees Quentin peering at him from the cottage doorway. The sight of him makes his lungs constrict just like it had yesterday, and _god_ , it really has only been a day and he already can't imagine how he ever thought he could be okay with Quentin not being there— "Uh. Hey."

"Hey." Quentin smiles at him, tentative. "You okay? Where's Margo?"

"Dealing with horse drama. It's just me."

"Oh." Quentin hesitates, then gestures into the cottage behind him. "You wanna come in?"

Walking up to the door is just as weird as he expected it would be, but Eliot pushes past the wave of fuzzy memories rising in his mind and makes himself step over the threshold. It's just the way he remembers it being, somehow. He hasn't ever lived here, not really, but he _knows_ it, the space itself, the same way he knows the exact shape and weight of the mosaic tiles despite never having touched them.

Everything is as it was when he and Quentin were there together - well, almost everything. There are a few unfamiliar additions that seem distinctly Q-flavoured, like a full bookshelf that wasn't there before, a model plane hanging in the corner, and, half-hidden under the bed, an inexplicable box of Star Wars lego. But otherwise, it's perfect. The mosaic is one thing, but there's no way anyone but him and Quentin knew how to get the cottage correct, the very atmosphere of it, the way it settles Eliot's nerves.

Quentin seems to know what he's thinking and smiles again as he leads Eliot over to the tiny table by the window. "Kind of weird, right? I tried not to change it much, even in the afterlife."

That much is evident. Eliot is sure that if he looked in the cupboards, he'd find the very same stone-and-wood dishware he and Quentin slowly collected over the years. "Not to, uh, look a gift horse in the mouth,'' Eliot says as he sits down across from Quentin, "but do you have any idea how all this ended up here?"

Quentin shrugs. "I guess it came with me? I'm not sure."

"Does the creation spell work like that?"

"Honestly, who knows how that spell works."

Eliot squints at him. "You translated it, didn't you?"

"Yeah, well." Quentin crosses his arms and looks away. "There were some other things going on, at the time."

Right. He had almost forgotten that Quentin, too, had been haunted by the Monster, had had to trail after it and watch it tear things apart using Eliot's hands. It's a miracle Quentin can stand to be around him, after that— 

"I know the difference," Quentin says, like he's reading Eliot's mind. "I know you're you. The Monster never— it didn't look at me like you do."

Eliot swallows hard, but he can't help the questions that surge up out of him from where he had been keeping them tamped down for months. "Why did you let it drag you around like that? Why didn't you—" He doesn't even know what he wants to say. _Fight back_? But he, of all people, is aware how pointless that would've been. If he really tries, he can still remember the phantom feeling of his hand around Quentin's throat.

"What else was I supposed to do?" Quentin asks, almost tiredly. "I had to give the others time, I had to— keep it entertained as long as I could. And it was _you_ , Eliot, I couldn't—" He stops, mouth twisting, and ducks his head. "I couldn't let you go, not if there was a way to get you back. And there was, and it worked, so… everything else that happened is just— it doesn't matter, now."

"It doesn't matter?" Eliot repeats, incredulous. "Quentin, I woke up and you were—" Dead. He was dead, and Eliot wasn't, and that's not the way it was ever supposed to go. "You were gone, and we were all supposed to, what, just be okay with that?"

Quentin keeps his eyes on the table. "I did what I had to, to save everyone."

"We could have found another way, one that didn't involve you _dying_."

"There wasn't time, Eliot," Quentin says, exasperated now. "And it was… it had to be me. Everett broke the mirror and I knew I could fix it. It was like I was meant to."

"But you weren't meant to _die_ , Quentin!" The window starts to rattle a little, and Eliot stands up from the table, pacing across the cottage to try and get his breathing back under control.

Quentin watches him with a frown, quiet for a long moment. "Why do you say that like it's your fault?"

Eliot just barely bites back a bitter laugh. "Isn't it? If I hadn't tried to shoot the Monster, it never would've gotten out."

"You don't know that," Quentin starts to say, but Eliot talks over him.

"It wouldn't have hijacked my body, it wouldn't have terrorized you for months, you wouldn't have gone to the seam in the first place—"

"Eliot, you couldn't have known any of that would happen," Quentin tries, standing up from the table. "You were just trying to—"

"To save you from an eternity spent in Blackspire." And hadn't Quentin kind of ended up there anyway, trapped on the other end of the Monster's leash? "You know, I couldn't understand why you were so willing to stay there," Eliot says, dragging a hand down his face. "But looking back, that's my fault, too."

Quentin shakes his head. "What are you talking about? How could that _possibly—_ "

"Because if I had just been honest—" Eliot starts, then swallows, tries again, "if I had just told you, after the mosaic—"

"Told me what?" Quentin looks impatient now, and a little hurt, crossing his arms again. "Because from what I remember, you made your position pretty clear back then."

"I lied," Eliot bursts out, making Quentin jump. "I was— scared, and I don't know how to look at a good thing and not run away. And then you died."

It hangs in the space between them, driving all the air out of the cottage for a few seconds. Their whole sad story laid out.

Eliot really doesn't want to fight anymore.

"Look, Q," he sighs, deflating, "I'm just… there's so much I never got to say to you."

Quentin doesn't say anything for a long few seconds, then he crosses the cottage, going to the bookshelf and pulling something out from between the spines. "Some of it, you did," he says, a little breathless, and when he turns around he's holding out— Eliot's letter, somehow, the magical stamp still pasted on the corner of the envelope.

"The Underworld postal service is kind of weird, so I can't really say when it arrived," Quentin explains, turning it over. "But I know why you didn't send it, um, properly."

"I wanted to," Eliot says immediately. "More than anything. But—"

Quentin smiles at him, a little sadly. "Yeah. I get it."

Eliot looks back down at the letter in his hands. The envelope is definitely open. The hope in his chest grows a little more. "So, you… you read it?"

But Quentin looks hesitant all of a sudden, and glances down at it too. "Um. No, I didn't."

The words are like a cold fist around Eliot's heart, dragging everything else down to the pit of his stomach. Was he really wrong about this after all, about everything between them? "Oh."

"I wanted to," Quentin says quickly, putting the envelope down on the shelf and hurrying over to him. "I mean, I knew it was from you, and I knew if you wanted me to get it before the seam then it must be... important." He falters on the last word, and shakes his head. "But I was already dead, Eliot, and I didnt want to— to start something I knew I couldn't finish."

The fist closes even tighter. "Then why did you keep it?" Eliot chokes out.

He watches Quentin swallow hard and make himself meet Eliot's gaze. "Because as long as I held onto it, I could imagine what it said," he admits. "What you would've risked everything to say to me. And that was, um. Nice, I guess."

Eliot stares back at him, confusion overtaking the hurt. "But now I'm here," Quentin goes on, gesturing nervously. "And— you're here. And I don't need the letter anymore."

He looks up at Eliot again, something like hope in his eyes. Eliot can only blink back at him. "You don't— you don't want to know what it said?" he asks, haltingly.

"Of course I do," Quentin says, like it's obvious. "But you're here now, so you can just. Tell me." The corners of his mouth quirk just a little, a tentative smile. "Right?"

"I—" Eliot isn't sure why he even pretends to have to think it over, when Quentin is looking at him like that. "Yeah, okay."

It's just a recitation of the letter he poured his heart into at his lowest point, no big deal. But everything he put in the letter seems to have suddenly fled from his mind. Maybe because Quentin is here in front of him instead of impossibly far away, unreachable except by magic letter that he couldn't ever send without ending the fucking world, and the juxtaposition is a lot to get over. Maybe he's still just not sure exactly what's going on.

But Quentin _is_ in front of him, close enough to touch.

Eliot reaches out for him almost without thinking, and Quentin moves into him immediately, like he'd been waiting for it. Eliot cups his face, thumb brushing his cheekbone, and watches his lips part.

They're both here, and so is the cottage and the mosaic and everything Eliot wouldn't let himself want, and Quentin is looking up at him like he still can't quite believe it, and honestly, Eliot can relate.

As for the letter— well. Eliot remembers the main throughline, even if it isn't something he ever wrote down. The thing he's wanted to say this whole time, ever since Quentin first stepped into view and countless times before that, the thing he hasn't said since the mosaic in the life that wasn't theirs, the thing he thought he'd never say again.

He's imagined it so many times. He had no idea how familiar it would feel on his tongue.

"I love you," Eliot tells him.

Quentin blinks, surprised for just a moment before he breaks into a smile, and Eliot swears his heart has never beat so hard. Quentin's hands come up to his wrists and Eliot is sure he must be able to feel his pulse thrumming there.

"The letter looked a lot longer than that," Quentin says softly.

Eliot shakes his head. "The rest doesn't matter. Quentin, I— I ran from you, and I'm sorry." His eyes start to feel hot again. "I've missed you so much."

"I missed you, too," Quentin whispers. "It's okay now.'' He pauses for a second before he turns his face into Eliot's palm, like he wants to be pet.

"Say it again," he murmurs.

Words have never come easier. "I love you," Eliot repeats, stroking Quentin's hair back from his face. "I thought I could settle for having you once, but I can't. I want it here, too."

"Eliot," Quentin breathes, and then he's pushing forwards, pulling Eliot's hands away from his face so he can surge up and kiss him.

It's like a missing piece sliding into place. Eliot presses back hard and feels Quentin sigh. He can't remember the last time he got to kiss Quentin, _this_ Quentin, not the one from the Happy Place or in his blurry mosaic memories. But he knows it never felt like this, anyway.

He slides his hand up around the back of Quentin's neck, pleased to find that it still makes his mouth drop open, and starts to back him up towards the bed. He knows without looking exactly where the thin mattress will hit the back of Quentin's knees, and follows him down. Quentin breaks away to shift himself up towards the pillows, grinning like he can't help himself when Eliot settles over him, but he stops him with a hand on his chest when Eliot tries to lean in again.

"Wait, Eliot, I— um—"

"What is it?" Eliot murmurs, searching his face. "Anything, Q, I'll do anything you want—"

Quentin pushes up to catch his mouth again, cutting him off, then leans back on his elbows, smiling sweetly at him. "I love you, too," he says, soft again. "You didn't give me a chance to say it back."

"Oh," Eliot says. His voice wavers a bit more than he expects it to. "Okay, great."

Quentin rolls his eyes, but he's still smiling when he lowers himself down to lie flat on the bed. "That's all. You can go back to ravishing me, now."

God, Eliot would really love nothing more, but— "Quentin," he says quietly, and cups his face again, kissing him soft and slow.

Until Quentin shifts under him, very pointedly, and Eliot laughs against his mouth. "Alright, I get it. Less talk, more action."

"I don't remember you ever being very capable of 'less talk'," Quentin snickers, spreading his legs for Eliot to kneel between.

Eliot rolls his eyes as he makes quick work of his shirt buttons and tosses it off the side of the bed. "Well, fortunately, I _do_ remember you being very into it."

Quentin flushes and opens his mouth to retort, but Eliot ducks back down to kiss him again, and then focuses on making him forget whatever he was about to say.

— — — 

On the first day of the seventh week of New Fillory's existence, Margo, Alice and Eliot say goodbye to Josh and Fen and set off from Margheritaville with a small bag of supplies each and some newly-transfigured walking shoes. They follow the now-familiar path to the clearing where Quentin is waiting by the fence with a bag of his own, twisting a long piece of fabric between his fingers. As they get closer, Eliot realizes it's the tie that he couldn't find earlier that morning.

He raises an eyebrow even as he ducks down to kiss Quentin's cheek in greeting. "Where'd you find that?" he asks.

Quentin gives him a sheepish smile. "You left it, last night."

"Oh, Jesus," Margo says, rolling her eyes, but behind her, Alice is valiantly fighting a smile. "You should just keep it there, you've already half-moved in."

Truthfully, having arrived with not much more than the clothes he was wearing, Eliot has moved _all_ the way into the cottage with Quentin. It's just that sleepovers with Margo aren't something he's going to give up unless forced to, so he's been splitting his time between the cabin in the village and the cottage only a short walk away. Going back and forth so often would feel a little ridiculous if it wasn't exactly what he wanted.

He takes the tie from Quentin and shoves it in his bag before anyone can say anything else on the matter. "Alright, are we going, or not?"

Margo gives him a knowing look but turns around to start into the forest again, and Alice follows, after sharing a smile with Quentin. He snickers at Eliot as he lifts his bag over his shoulder. "It's not like the vast unexplored landscape is going anywhere, El."

"Excuse me for wanting to make use of the daylight," Eliot huffs, but there's no heat behind it.

Quentin raises his eyebrows at him. "This, from the guy who had to get talked out of wearing Oxfords for the whole trip?"

Eliot had definitely only put up so much of a fight because he knew Quentin would eventually resort to _other_ means of convincing him, but he's pretty sure Quentin knows that already. "New Fillorian aesthetics leave something to be desired, okay? Come on."

He holds out his hand and Quentin takes it with a grin, and they set off to follow Alice and Margo through the trees.

The day is warm, even as early as it is, but in the shade it's pleasantly cool. Their forest route doesn't take long, and soon enough they're emerging on the cliff Alice had shown Eliot a few days ago, except this time they start down the slope of it towards the Rainbow Bridge.

"I still can't believe this is here," Quentin says, looking over at the bridge every few steps. "I hadn't seen the old one in… years, probably."

"Me either," Eliot hums, more focused on making sure they don't put a foot wrong and slide down the hill.

Quentin pauses a couple feet from the cliff's edge, looking down at the water below. "Makes me wonder what other pieces of Fillory are out there," he sighs, wistful.

"I'm sure there's a few," Eliot says, stepping a little closer to peer over the edge with him. The immediate vertigo isn't great, and he pulls back to look across the bridge instead. "There's something Fen said while they were casting, that for the spell they should focus on the best parts of Fillory and of Earth. 'The best of us', she said." He looks down, admiring Quentin's look of awe for a few seconds. "Maybe that's how you got here."

"What?" Quentin laughs, straightening up to look at him. "I don't think it works like that."

"Why not? You said yourself you're not sure how it happened," Eliot points out, letting Quentin lead him away from the cliff, but he stops and pulls him closer when he starts to head for the bridge. "And you are, you know. The best of us."

Quentin looks like he doesn't quite believe him, but that's okay. Eliot has time to convince him.

For now he kisses Quentin's face until he smiles again, and then tugs him along to catch up to the others, already across the bridge and yelling for them to hurry up.

The sun is rising over the trees behind them, painting the planks gold. New Fillory stretches out before them, unmapped and mysterious, but Eliot has never felt more sure of anything. He slips Quentin's fingers more securely between his own, and they take their first steps into the new landscape together.

**Author's Note:**

> yea i support the magicians showrunners' rights. the magicians showrunners' rights to shut the fuck up
> 
> special shoutout 2 one direction for where do broken hearts go. i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/marcelucien_) where i'm gay and mad or [tumblr](https://aniallating.tumblr.com) where i'm just gay


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